Breitbart notes that Clift appeared on the “The McLaughlin Group” this weekend, where she claimed that (1) the attacks on the U.S. Consulate the night of Sept. 11, 2012 were a byproduct of an incendiary video and (2) Ambassador Chris Stevens died not of injuries inflicted by the terrorists who stormed the compound but smoke inhalation.

Trey Gowdy has already referred to this investigation as a trial and called the administration the defendants. This is a political witch hunt. He knows the answer to those questions. There have been two congressional investigations. There’s been a three-month investigation by The New York Times. Nobody has come up with malicious wrongdoing on the part of the administration.

The first question he asked – why was Ambassador Stevens there. This was not a diplomatic outpost. This was a CIA outpost. And Ambassador Stevens was known as an assertive ambassador who didn’t pay enough attention to his own personal safety. He didn’t like what was going on in that consulate. They were detaining people. They were interrogating people. And he was going there to basically confront what was going on. This was a CIA operation, which is why there was so much confusion in how to respond in the hours immediately after. And if Mr. Gowdy wants to turn this into a political exercise, he’s playing with the national security of the United States. And they’re already fundraising on it — the Republicans are. It’s a pretty shameless exercise.

Every media organization has investigated this to death. This animates the right-wing of the Republican Party and I would like to point out ambassador Stevens was not murdered. He died of smoke inhalation in the safe room of that CIA installation … It was an opportunistic terrorist attack that grew out of that video. There were demonstrations across the world. [Emphasis added]

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Howard Portnoy has written for New York's "Daily News" and several national magazines. He has one published novel, "Hot Rain," (G. P. Putnam's Sons), and has ghost-written some dozen books on art and literature. He also blogs at Liberty Unyielding and formerly blogged at Hot Air. Click the “Subscribe” link to have his articles sent directly to your e-mail inbox.